“My clothes and the spaces they inhabit are inseparable - they are one and they are same. They convey the same vision, the same message, and the same sense of values.”-Rei Kawakubo,2017​​​

2. Design / Not Design

“I wasn’t limited to the confines of pattern. Not being educated, not being taught how to design, I was able to visualize in a completely different context. And I still seem able to draw upon the unconventional.”-Rei Kawakubo,1993​

3. Fashion / Antifashion

“I am not protesting against fashion. This is something else, another direction.”​-Rei Kawakubo,1983

​4. Model / Multiple

“Fashion is not art. You sell art to one person. Fashion comes in a series and it is a more social phenomenon.”​-Rei Kawakubo,1998

5. High / Low

“There’s value in bad taste.”-Rei Kawakubo,2008

6. Then / Now

“The right half of my brain likes tradition and history, the left wants to break the rule.”-Rei Kawakubo,2005

​7. Self / Other

“From the Beginning, I dispensed with any preconceived notions about Western and Eastern social all these things are irrelevant to my world…. I deliberately cast away all question of upbringing, nationality, sociology and like.” -Rei Kawakubo,2011

​​8. Object / Subject

“I want to rethink the body, so the body and dress become one.”-Rei Kawakubo,1997

​9. Clothes / Not Clothes

“If we say ’these are clothes,’ it’s all very usual, so we said ‘these are not clothes.’ It sounds like a Zen dialogue, but it is very simple.”-Rei Kawakubo,2014

9.1 From / Function​“Personally, I don’t care about fashion at all…. When I hear ‘where could you wear that?’ or ‘it’s not very wearable,’ or ‘who would wear that?’ to me it’s just sign that someone missed the point.”-Rei Kawakubo,2012

9.2 Abstraction / Representation

“Things that have never been seen before have a tendency to be somewhat abstract, but making art is not my intention at all. All my effort is oriented towards giving form to clothes that have never been before.”-Rei Kawakubo,2015

​9.3 Beautiful / Grotesque

“I learned that beautiful things for me are not necessarily beautiful to everyone else, but they could well be something very scary.”-Rei Kawakubo,2005

9.4 War / Peace

“One can’t fight the battle without freedom. I think the beltway to find that battle, which equals the unyielding spirit, is in the realm of creation.” -Rei Kawakubo,2010

9.5 Life / Loss

“Nothing new can come out of a situation without suffering.”-Rei Kawakubo,2014

​​9.6 Fact / Fiction

“I remember reading about the way a novelist works. It said that he doesn’t think up an outline and write from the top. He writes bits and pieces and put them together at the end. That sounds familiar to me.”-Rei Kawakubo,2012

​​9.7 Order / Chaos

“Am I an anarchist? In the sense that anarchy equals freedom, but it also means chaos.”​-Rei Kawakubo,2016

​9.8 Bound / Unbound

“I never give myself any boundaries or let them interfere with my work.” -Rei Kawakubo,2011